Complaints about insurance claims rise 7% in 2015

The Insurance Claims Complaints Bureau received 7 percent more new cases last year, compared with a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent in insurance premiums, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported Tuesday.

The authority handled a total of 728 cases over the course of 2015, of which 647 were new cases and 81 were cases that rolled over from 2014.

Apart from 284 cases that involve elements beyond the bureau’s statutory authority, investigation has been completed in 333 out of the remaining 444 cases and is in progress in the other 111.

The most common products complained about are travel insurance and hospital or health insurance, the report said, citing the bureau’s data.

The 333 completed cases are mainly related to interpretation of the terms and conditions of the policies, non-insured items, non-disclosure and insured amounts.

Only 56 complainants received a total of HK$2.75 million in compensation, of which HK$260,000 was ordered by the bureau upon finding their complaints were justified.

More insured mainlanders have filed complaints since they started being allowed to in May 2013, the number climbing from six that year to 30 last year. Their cases concerned life, hospital and critical illness insurance.

China’s economy is showing signs of cooling further, with investment growth slowing to a record low and consumers turning more cautious about spending, Reuters reports, citing official data. Fixed-asset investment expanded by a less-than-expected...

New security measures from Facebook will require administrators of Pages with large audiences in the US to complete an authorization process before posting. The move represents another step of the social network to prevent...

China is currently the world’s largest chip market. However, homegrown chips account for less than 20 percent of total consumption, while the remaining demand is satisfied by imports from foreign countries like the United...

What could Beijing do to offset the adverse impact of the escalating US-China trade war? Fighting back with tariff hikes or limiting the damage by further depreciating the renminbi may not work well. I believe...

Women hold up half the sky, Mao Zedong once declared, and in this digital era, they – especially female millennials in China and other Asian countries – also hold up the fortunes of Meitu (01357.HK),...

The European Union’s regulatory bodies seem to be particularly hostile to Google. In June 2017, the European Commission fined the company 2.42 billion euro (US$2.75 billion) for breaching EU antitrust rules, after concluding that,...

Taiwan’s Foxconn, the world’s top contract electronics maker and an Apple supplier, posted surprisingly lower quarterly net profit, extending a downward streak to a second quarter in a row, Reuters reports. The tepid results...

Short sellers betting against Tesla Inc. trimmed their exposure to the electric car maker’s stock after chief executive Elon Musk gave new information about his proposal to take the company private, Reuters reports. Data...

Citigroup Inc. restructured its consumer bank, elevating one executive and triggering the departure of another, as the third-biggest US bank moved to improve results, Reuters reports. The changes will “harmonize” Citigroup’s consumer business with...

US economic growth will probably accelerate this year before slowing in 2019 to well below the Trump administration’s 3 percent target as a fiscal stimulus fades, congressional researchers said. In an updated economic outlook,...